 In losing my freedom, I discovered my freedom, so maybe the universe needed to remove all of the things I gave power to so that I can remember where the power belonged inside of myself. Welcome everybody to the Minds and Mentor podcast. I am excited to bring you my guest today who I'm super interested about, which is crazy because we've been friends for a little while I've never researched you and I was like I gotta research him because I'm gonna be interviewing him this week and we were just on that before the cameras went on we're like this guy has literally been in every single industry you've done everything in your life and the fact that you're 41, 42. I'll be 42 in July. 42 in July and you have the story that you have. It's pretty remarkable so Garen Jones everybody. I'm excited to bring you Garen Jones and I want to dive in and I want to talk about your childhood first. You've told me some crazy stories when I've been hanging out at your house and there should be a movie on you for all of the different crazy stories you've had as a kid. There's gonna be a Garen Jones movie one day and so tell us a little bit about yourself so people who don't know who you are so we can get a little bit of an idea of who you are. So I was born and raised in Missouri City, Texas. Family didn't come from money. Parents split up when I was four years old. My father was murdered when I was 12 that's when I just decided I don't care about anything and that's when I got into breaking in the cars, breaking in the houses and just doing whatever with no regard to responsibility because after my dad died it was like a part of me died and I just didn't care and that just carried on into high school but somehow I had a knack to run track and be really fast and that was the silver lining that just kept me going. I probably wouldn't have made it out of high school if it hadn't been for track and field and then I always had dreams to be a model and people called me crazy when I was a little kid but I was like man one day I'm gonna be a model. I'm gonna do Tommy Hilfiger and one day I'm gonna be on TV. One day I just always saw that but coming from Missouri City that's not normal like people there's a lot of really talented people from where I'm from they're getting the shine now because of like entertainment like rap and things like that but anything outside of that really didn't make it outside of that city and so I was looked at as the crazy kid who man you're like an alien bro you just talk about stuff that makes sense to nobody but I always knew that I was supposed to do the things that I'm now doing and you know I was in and out of juvenile several times one time I had a stint six and a half months and after I got out of juvenile I was supposed to go to TYC which is a prison for teenagers and then after I got out of TYC I was also being tried as an adult at the age of 15 because I got busted for 62 felonies breaking two felonies yeah but here's what I want people to see on the surface right was 62 felonies but below was a little kid who was driven to succeed at something and energy cannot be created nor destroyed it can only be transferred I just wasn't aware of where to put this energy so I put it into chasing women I put it into cheating on tests I put it into track and field which I succeeded at all of them and you know it's it's it's like learning a language you don't just stop learning English once you've already been domesticated with it so my upbringing was that of just trying to thief trying to get around without working hard and just just having no regard for those who came before me disrespecting people cheating on women you know as I started getting older that never stopped so a big part of my childhood was a a directionless little kid who was driven and didn't know where to point the energy it's interesting because I've heard you talk about and you just started saying it's it's like a language like poverty is kind of like a language you were you were raising the situation you just and I've always thought about it I've always thought to myself I was lucky where I was able to see we didn't have any money you know my mom applied for food stamps but you can't get food stamps when you got a car for some reason so we never were able to get it and one thing that I did have though and it was being able to see my uncle who was very successful yeah right now I was able to see it I was able to see my father and him passing away at 15 when I was 15 from him being an alcoholic and all of the the stuff that he went through because he didn't overcome his traumas if of his father killing himself when he was 12 and walking in the room and seeing it but then on the other side I saw my uncle Dan and he was a successful guy had 200 employees all of this stuff and I saw that there were other options and what you're kind of saying is where you were growing up there was no other options it was like this is if you were to grow up in Spain you'd speak Spanish but if you were to grow up where you grew up yeah that poverty and what you saw was basically a language that you just spoken that went through your head at all points in time yeah and that also speaks to the power of community too but the things that I did have access to is I saw and even though I felt like my brother never liked me because he pretty much disowned me when I was a kid I saw him fall in love with skateboarding and he studied film and he practiced and I didn't know what that and you can't change which are not aware of but if it's ingrained in there it's somewhere in your subconscious mind so I saw that I have a my uncle he was gay but I didn't know what that was when I was four and five years old so he used to wear bright colors and he was very expressive and he would just dance all the time if you anybody knows anything about me I am loud I wear bright colors and very unashamed like unapologetically you know who that came from your uncle Dwayne yeah but I had I had no idea I was just exposed to the people that I was exposed around and so I'm forever grateful for my uncle Dwayne because what he taught me is what people struggle with today is being open-minded and my best friend was Muslim my other best friend was Jewish my mom went to a Methodist church and the people in my school went to a Baptist church and I fell in love with the with the non-denominational so I was so exposed to my favorite uncle who was gay and then my best friend who was Muslim so from a little kid I always had an open mind to just be able to receive people for who they are and be authentically me for sure I didn't know that I'd get paid for that down the line because a lot of people are stuck in that domestication of this is how it is and my dad was like this well my dad wasn't around my mom was always at work and my brother pretty much disowned me so I pretty much raised myself along with the streets but I definitely wanted to speak into that language you think about how it's ingrained you you go gaga goo goo then you learn the ABCs then you keep on harping on the basics then that turns into words sentences paragraphs essays books libraries so imagine the household of insecurity lack of worthiness authenticity and all these different things this is what little kids without even knowing this is how their domestication shapes their future and I say all the time adults are deteriorated children until you see that you can create a different outcome for your life so what does that take you so you know you're in juvenile what happens after juvenile because you you talk about modeling you talk about yeah but there's a whole lot of stuff that's happening between there so so you uh you went from there you lived in a car for for two years yep you've been you've been in prison a french prison yep so what are the stories behind all these because you've done everything that you could possibly do it seems like so I kept on with the language of looking for cheap ways to get around things and never you know just but more than anything I always was seeking a place of belonging I always I never felt like I belonged anywhere so I tend to hang out with the people that were showing me love when I was a little kid the people that would show me love or the people that got in trouble all the time well you fast forward five ten years and that's still the same characterization of my life by nature when I'm around that environment it's like a safe environment for me so when I was in juvenile and I remember because I didn't start puberty so I was 18 years old so I was a little kid for a long time when I was in juvenile everybody said to me it was like what are you doing in here you look too nice but I was so fearless like I would do the stuff that no one would do without hesitation for the sake of somebody's gonna recognize me and and say oh great job because I never heard you matter you're special you're important when I was a little kid so I'm in juvenile and I remember my probation officer said to me he said he goes you know Gary and there comes a time in your life where you hit a fork in the road and you can either turn left or you can turn right and he looked me in the eye and he said or you can hit the brick wall he said Gary and you've hit the brick wall he said I'll see you in prison and I never forgot that and I still kept up with the crime and stuff like that but I never forgot what he said hey let me tell you about my favorite drink that I drink first thing in the morning it's called athletic greens it's how I start my day every single day and after I wake up in the morning I brush my teeth go to the bathroom drink that athletic greens and then go meditate and in 30 seconds in just one scoop I get 75 vitamins, minerals and whole food source ingredients and it has everything that a multi-vitamin has plus greens, probiotics, prebiotics, digestive enzymes, immunity formula, adaptogens and more and my girlfriend was literally just sick last week I slept next to her every single night but I took my athletic greens every single day and I never got the sickness that she had so if you're looking to upgrade your multi-vitamin or take one nutritional formula that's going to help cover your daily nutritional bases then you want to try out athletic greens make an investment in your health today and try the ultimate all-in-one wellness bundle and support your immunity, gut health, energy and everything else by visiting athleticgreens.com slash dial you'll receive a full year supply of liquid vitamin D for free with your first purchase that is athleticgreens.com slash dial fast forward some years I'm still trying to figure out my life and I knew that I wasn't supposed to be in Missouri City I knew I was meant to go somewhere else I knew that since I was a little kid so I left I went to I was in Los Angeles trying to figure life out ended up signing a record deal with the guy in Ohio that I met in Los Angeles which it made no sense to leave that music capital and then go to Ohio at that time nothing was popping out of there and I go there and he promises promises us this big contract and you can stay on the other side of my house and I'm like oh my god we get to go to is it is a group and the name of our singing group was called soldier he was like we get to go on the other side of the house man we get to the house and it was like hell's day everything that he said was a lie his father was a it was like a a pastor but he's like funneling this criminal type stuff and I'm just like what is happening you know how I signed the contract huh there was a plastic machine gun on the table and he literally said you know why it's plastic and I said why because if I use it I can melt it no one will ever find out so I ended up signing my life away legit signing my life away and in this moment I was like what's happening I'm 18 years old what is this and I still wasn't aware it's like still kept chasing women still kept doing like little petty things because I just didn't know I had lacked major direction and even how I got out of that situation we were in Miami for this event called the impact he wanted us to take his gun home because he couldn't take it on the on the plane flight so we took we were we had the briefcase and the gun and we're driving and I said stop the car I'm not going back to Ohio they're like he's going to kill us I was like how we got his gun I'm not going back to Ohio now I didn't know at the time but I was leading I was influencing people in a certain way I said I'm not going back to Ohio let me out of the car no phone no money no car what do I do I start walking with determination to God knows where they stopped the car come back and then we start to go back to LA so I think my confidence and where I was going was much stronger than their lack of confidence in going back to an area where they were fearing for their life we open up the the the briefcase and all of our contracts were in there I'm like fuck that like so we we burn up the contracts throw away the gun come back to LA that's when my LA starts I was like I got to figure something out and so I enrolled in the Santa Monica Community College met two roommates there and I was like yeah I need a place to stay because I was staying with my cousin Marcus at the time and I was like but it was just he was he was way too strict I need a place to stay stay with these two like Japanese girls from Okinawa they could barely speak English and we were all sleeping in the same bed nothing sexual but it was just like yo this is like wild like how am I in this situation right someone said I should model get it I'm six one now but at the time I was five foot nine and they were joking around don't joke around with me because I'm going to actually prove you wrong so I literally went to every single agency there was in Los Angeles starting with the easiest ones first Ford and Wilhelmina the hardest ones last I got rejected every single day for four days and on the last day I was like you know what it's not worth it a little voice came up inside of me and says you come this far keep going so I go in that room and I'm watching at least 75 guys who I feel look way better than me I'm like they've already got two black guys on the wall and at that time they only took two or three black people on any fashion wall dark skin guy light skin guy the one light skin guy the bright eyes and the big hair on every single high fashion model wall they already had that so my insecurity I have no abs I have no book I have no car I don't look like a model I don't look like anybody in here so that's what had me walk away so I walk up and it was my turn after everybody got maybe 10 seconds of looking time with the agent everybody got rejected I'm like you know what fuck it I'ma just be me inside of that breath and I go in there and they're looking at me and it's longer than 10 seconds I'm like they're like huh and he goes away takes my polaroid and my little bird chest comes back with two other agents and I'm like and he goes we'd love to represent you you don't look like anybody so my insecurity was the uniqueness not my actual insecurity but what I felt was my insecurity because I don't look like anybody was the thing that they were looking for they sent me on a destiny's child jump and jumping a video audition to be the lead role of Beyonce's boyfriend they sent me on a buckle campaign and sketchers campaign I didn't have a car I could only make two of them I made the buckle and sketches and I didn't want to tell them I'm like damn I finally got a shot I don't want to tell them I didn't even go to the audition first thing in the morning David calls me and says congratulations you book all three jobs and you even go to the third one I didn't go to third I was like wait a second I was like even the destiny's child video I'm like damn he's like yeah because I didn't know Beyonce was with the agency she's with Wilhelmina Beyonce just happened to walk into the agency agency yesterday and she handpicked your card as her love interest in the destiny's child jump and jumping video you can check it out good about yourself huh I bet you felt good about so good and I was $7500 richer from having no money plus I booked the sketchers campaign $5,000 plus I booked the um sketchers and the buckle campaign $4,500 so instantly in one day $13,000 my mind was blown and I just kept booking jobs what I realized it wasn't about how I looked but how people felt around me how I was laughing and making people feel seen and heard and it was easy to work with me and everybody else was like snobby behind like behind the camera or when the camera was off the word was is man Garen is so easy to work with you deaf and the world is so big but it's so small in the industry and every and in this industry you book a lot of jobs two three ways three ways you sleeping with somebody or you're like the next god's gift to you look you're like the most unique person on the planet like the albino kid like completely different than anyone is like you're gonna book every job or you have the best personality I wasn't the best looking guy wasn't sleeping with anybody and but you could not out out person or personality we were just having fun it was like a party every uh every time we did a photo shoot so that's how modeling came about and I just the lesson that I learned in modeling was I went through probably about 14 or 15 rejections but I was growing through those rejections so I learned how to grow through my nose to earn my powerful yes right I was tell people that and that's it's it's funny because one thing we used to always do when I would run sales offices is we would have these things called two week pushes we're like we put everything in we eat sleep and breathe 14 days in a row just go at it and I'm like the universe is gonna test you at some point in time like to see if you actually want it like your car is gonna break down somebody's gonna die you know you're gonna get sick you're gonna get the flu there's something that's gonna happen and it's like the universe will always test you to see if what you're actually going for is is something that you're really passionate about and for you that's a perfect example like you had to go through a bunch of nose most people would have given up at no number two they wouldn't have kept going right yeah so it's like oh they wouldn't have even showed up in the first place right so it's like you had to go through showing up getting rejected get a rejection all of your insecurities coming to the surface and then going to the very last one and having that feeling of I just shouldn't even do it and then the universe spoke inside of you and you're like all right let me go in yeah you went in and you booked it but it happened to be the last one it's the universe testing you at all points in time and that's it's crazy that's that story so is that is that before the whole thing happening in France then the the french prison yeah so how do you go from you know because everyone's gonna be like well dude this make guys make it so much money how does he go and and get into a french prison years down the road so here's here's the deal and it was during the process so this was during the modeling this was during the modeling okay yeah it's wild bro so here I am making all this money but just as fast as it's coming in it's going out I don't have a financial advisor I don't come from money so you end up attracting as far as income goes the level of personal development and how you see yourself I didn't feel worthy of the money I was getting so as fast as man I was buying I had a little bitty apartment sleeping on a box spring with a bunch of blankets buying a five thousand dollar pair of Dolce and Dolce and Gabbana spiky shoes right I had no understanding of how money breathes and how money is energy and how you can attract it according to the value in which you first see yourself no idea and you can't change what you're not aware of so while being in the picture frame of my life because you can't it's like you can't see what's inside of the frame while you're in the picture and so here I am doing all this modeling stuff and I meant you could open up magazines you'll see me in Wilson's Leather you can see me in Expressman you can see me in Nietzsche but in the same magazine it was like man this dude is everywhere you can walk in the mall at one time and I had seven different campaigns going Gap old Navy Tommy Hill figure Wilson's Leather but it was all Macy's it was all in the malls at the same time so you're in every single store that you walk by bro damn near every single one plus I had the Destiny's Child video out plus I had the old Navy commercial out plus I had L'Oreal hair commercial out they dyed my hair like burgundy so it was like I was everywhere here's the deal but the money the way in which checks were coming in they weren't coming in every single day they were coming in like six months later and I didn't I never knew what it was like to make instant money so here I am at the height of my career you could go and you could you could go to Times Square and there was a massive there's Hulk the movie Hulk Hulk I mean Incredible Hulk and then there's my billboard that's bigger than Incredible Hulk billboard and I'm just like on top of the world also I had a huge ego at that time I wasn't doing any self-development I did not know how to approach life with grace and ease and build people up I would gossip and all these different things but I didn't know because see before I did all this I was reading a book called the power of positive thinking by Dr. Norman Vincent Peel but I read that book over 300 something times between the paperback and audiobook because great things kept happening I didn't know you're supposed to keep reading and once you stop reading your mind is like a garden so once you stop learning the weeds of your past start creeping over so once I'm like oh yeah I'm the man oh yeah I'm good I'm the you can't tell me nothing ego starts creeping in and the the the reflection of when you start seeing yourself that way when you start looking down on people your life is a reflection according to how you see yourself and I saw myself above everybody so I got massively humbled hey life is fragile and the older that I get the more I realize that I want to make sure that my family is safe just in case something happens to me and that's why it makes sense why people get life insurance especially long-term coverage which is surprisingly affordable why not pay a little bit more each month to protect the ones that you love if you're asking yourself that question choose ladder ladder makes it impressively fast and easy to get covered all you need is just a few minutes and a phone or laptop to apply and ladder smart algorithms work in real time so you'll find out instantly if you're approved there's no hidden fees and you can cancel at any time and life insurance costs more as you age so now is the right time to cross it off your list so check out ladder today to see if you're instantly approved go to ladderlife.com slash dial that's L A D D E R life.com slash dial to see if you can get approved instantly. But I had a girlfriend and she was Miss France 2001 2002 or something like that I'm living the highlight bro I'm like I gotta miss it's like Miss America so I gotta Miss France girlfriend you're all over billboards bro I'm all over billboards I'm like I got celebrity friends living in LA at the hottest parties and I'm in New York because I have a place in LA in New York I'm in New York and then I meet the I see these guys and one of them introduced me to Miss France at the time I didn't know she was but like we hit it off quickly she became my girlfriend and I was just like ran around chased that girl to to France I went to France she went out of town and I saw some guys at a club and I knew back in LA I knew they were up to no good however they lived the kind of life I'm making all this money but I'm not I don't know how to I don't know anything about investment or anything like that so I'm making all this money but I'm making it look good however I don't have no money in my account because I keep spinning it on bullshit see these guys they got the Benzes the Bentley's the Rolls Royces they got the bottles though I've never had a sip a sip of alcohol in my life I always wanted to like pop even if it was cranberry juice or pineapple juice or water bottles at the club and have the best table being surrounded by all the girls I always wanted that kind of lifestyle that big quality of lifestyle so I seen a guy and I'm like how can I get your life he offered me an opportunity he's like he there's only so much I could say you know but he offered me an opportunity to meet him somewhere and we talked some stuff and he sent me on a mission I picked up a car I drove a car over the ferry I was in the UK over a ferry to Amsterdam don't ask don't tell I didn't know what I was carrying I didn't ask but my cover-up was I'm on the cover of this magazine so every time I would get to the border I'd show them the cover of this magazine and then I would just go through well I would make four thousand pounds every time I drove the car and all I had to do was drive the car to Amsterdam a Rotterdam and leave it and then pick it up the next day and and that was it that was it four thousand pounds at that time was 2.3 US dollars to one to one pound so four thousand pounds yeah but instantly in cash tax-free so imagine I'm doing all this stuff but I have a dark side see I never learned my mom always taught me she was like whenever because she never bought me anything whenever you can make your own money you can buy whatever you want so I just did whatever I could to make my own money or there's mowing lawns cutting grass when I was a little kid selling lemonade stands I didn't know that that was like a little entrepreneur I always that's where my hustle and drive came from well while I was making all this money I still wanted to make more money greed hunger and all I put money over people so I took that job and then I took another one and over a two two month span of time I did it seven times so I'm sitting there waiting on my checks to come in for modeling on billboards but I'm doing all this not thinking about the responsibility I mean what would happen the ramifications of what would happen so here I am four thousand four thousand four thousand four thousand four all cash now times at times two and I'm 23 years old yo I was rolling I'm like yo this is easy yeah now I don't have to wait about wait with money eighth time something don't feel right I got caught did it not feel right even before you got caught oh it didn't feel right because before before they sent me because the last time they sent me to France but before they sent me there they wanted me to go to Africa and I'm like I'm not going to Africa well guess what the dude who took my place this was back in 2002 the dude who took my place and taking these drugs which I later found out was drugs still in prison right now I was supposed to go and then I stopped and then the next time I was like man something about this don't feel right they're like we want you to go into France I go into France every sign in the world stop stop and usually when you don't listen to those signs they get louder and louder and louder stop stop and get to the border and I try to use my cover of a modeling again next time they say we need to check your vehicle I'm like this is new they've never asked to check my vehicle open up the back there's congo drums bro don't know what's in the congo drums but I feel like I'm yeah they x-ray the congo drums and you can see these little bricks inside they open up the congo drums and it's hollow so they had to cut open the inside and they pull out these little yellow bricks one by one I said my life is over I'm booking stuff with vh1 I've got acting gigs going I got modeling gigs going everything is happening and in and I have a one and a half year old daughter at that time in that moment that's when it all caught up to me what the fuck did I just do my life is over because in my head prison is like prison that you see on rikers island I'm like y'all I'm gonna go to prison for a long time so they put me in a holding cell for five days and all they kept they barely even fed me so I'm sleeping on this hard concrete floor it's freezing cold in there they're giving me this little square of of food and I couldn't brush my teeth and they just kept saying who who is it who are you working for who and the the type of people I was working for if I ever as a snitch I would I wouldn't live right and I have a daughter so I took everything I said and I did but I literally say I don't know so they showed me on surveillance cameras because they had been monitoring these people for years they showed me a video of me on camera they showed me a video of me on camera and the guy they said that's you right there I said no it's not and I denied it that's not me and I don't know who that is so you're gonna go to prison for a long time I was in that prison for a whole year before I got my first phone call in America you get your first phone call right away so imagine one year most people thought I died they didn't know where you were at all no wow but here's the deal because it's overseas you write a letter they got a decode everything in your writing so it took two let two months for a letter to get to my mom so I was working through the consulate but it was so wild so I'm in there and I'm like what did I do and my life like that movie six cents when he didn't know he was dead the whole time and then his whole life just flashed before his eyes every single crime I ever committed every shady thing every time I cheated on the test hit me when I went to prison my life is over everything everything is over I'll never see my daughter again so after a year I was just kind of just kind of coasting coasting coasting coasting coasting finding start picking up books and everything after a year they sentenced me this was in 2003 where they sentenced me to 2014 and in Europe if you appeal they see it as a sign of disrespect and they'll give you more time they give you more time for appeals if you appeal well oh yeah if they got a weird judicial judicial system out there so I'm out there and I'm just like yo I don't know what the fuck I'm gonna do like my life is over so here I am then they played something on tv they played Shawshank Redemption we're allowed to watch it once once a month uh watch a movie once so in prison they're showing a movie of people raking out of prison yeah Shawshank Redemption of all the movies they give you it's people breaking out of prison so we're watching Shawshank Redemption and at this time my life is over and Tim Robbins says one phrase changed the game for me he says they can take anything they want away from me but they can't take away my mind boom instantly I was hit I'm like wait I know exactly why I'm in prison because when I was out of prison free I used to say every day I feel like I'm so far away from where I'm supposed to be I feel like I'm in jail inside of my own body I feel like I'm in a prison far away from where I'm supposed to be and guess what I manifested you're in prison far away from where you're in prison in Europe yeah so I said if I can put myself in prison yeah well then in this moment I'm a free man so when I said I am a free man I then started to think what would I do in here that I wouldn't normally do out there I stopped using my dominant hand I started using my non-dominant hand which I didn't even realize was operating a different part of my brain I started creating I mean I was reading book after book after book I learned to speak fluent French I joined the art class I just started doing all these things and and and every time I was doing the stuff that I used to love when I was a little kid it brought me so much joy and the and the inmates were like man every time you sing it makes me feel free so I just kept singing but it it was like what brought me joy was getting out on other people and I would paint and draw portraits of other people's families they were crying and they're they're like man thank you so much can I give you anything I'm like nah man I just want you to be happy and so I became the kind of person which I now know was adding so much value then I started running nobody was running all they were doing was like lifting weights and fighting doing drug deals stabbing and the shit like that like I really saw what happens when humans are suppressed and then I just started running a little voice says start running you love to run running used to make you feel free when you're a kid 30 days half the inmates running with me less fights less drug deals less stabbings the warden brought me inside me ever since you've been running this place has been peaceful keep doing great work remember what I told you what I didn't get when I was a little kid somebody acknowledging me for doings so I just kept going and I became this person that people came to for advice I'm like you know this is wild here's the deal when I felt free um felt it's the difference between oh I think I'm free but when I embodied the characteristics of freedom which is ultimately doing everything that your heart wants you to express especially when it's been something I've that made me happy when I was a kid when I felt free out of nowhere mind you I'm started serving a 12 year sentence out of nowhere when I felt free they just called me in the office and they said today's your lucky day we retested the drugs which they had no reason to because they already tested them three times it was 6.2 kilos of heroin they had no reason to retested drugs two and a half years later retested the drugs 90% was fake for the amount that was real you've already done the time you're free to go home shut up so what you're telling me is when you were out of prison before you went into prison you were in a prison of your own mind when you were in and in that created you being in a prison eventually you've because I've been around you and you can tell like your energy your you manifest stuff like if there's even people out there just like oh yeah I don't understand the word manifestation stuff like you're constantly manifesting stuff you manifest yourself in a prison far away from where you should be then when you're in there you start saying I am a free man I am a free man and we can dive into and I've talked about many times the power of just the phrase I am you said I'm a free man I'm a free man and you started doing things you said okay if this got me into prison let me do the exact opposite of everything that I've ever done and you started doing all of these things you've lit up the little child that's inside of you and because of that it created the freedom there was no reason why somebody should ever retest drugs two and a half years down the road and find out that it was 90% fake and then you automatically just get out like you were literally able to create yourself into prison then you're literally able to create yourself out of prison in losing my freedom I discovered my freedom so maybe the universe needed to remove all of the things I gave power to so that I can remember where the power belonged inside of myself but I was still unaware of all this stuff so you can still get results being unaware but if you're unaware you cannot articulate what's actually happening or use it because you don't even know it's just happening so I'm just doing stuff I'm reading books I'm being really kind of motivating people I'm drawing art and doing all this stuff but while I'm in there I've wrote all these because when the mind is quiet who you really are shows up you're higher self literally start speaking well when you're in a prison and there's no women distraction or traffic or anything like job or anything and you just got a lot of time to yourself man I started I read the bible cover to cover three times I read the Quran cover to cover three times I'm like oh they're saying the same thing underneath I'm like but who really from this word reads this and reads this it was wild bro I was just feeding myself with the information when I got out everything because it was like an overflow if you if I pour so much water inside of this and it reaches its tipping point it's eventually going to spill over into the next container but if you pour so much inside of yourself which is a container it's eventually going to spill over into the next container called the physical equivalent of your life yeah I unconsciously did that so if you look at prison as if it were a woman's womb with my we have a my wife is 26 weeks we're 26 weeks pregnant right now so if you look at that prison if as if it was a womb I first added value to myself by doing everything that I love not what everybody else wanted me to do giving everybody else power over my life I did everything that I loved it was too big for the eye container and it spilled over into the yaw container it spilled over into the people and then they started doing stuff that they love which was too big for the container so that level of value in the overflow and overflow was too big for the womb of prison so just like a baby what once grew on the inside gets too big for the womb contractions and then it's produced into the next realm called birth I feel that my spirit body called the value and what I was adding it's too big for that space so what once grew on the inside was produced on the outside yeah called the birth of freedom so I can articulate because I apply it now I couldn't apply it back then I'm just like oh man I was praying and I was lucky and this thing happened it's crazy but I also wrote a bunch of songs while I was in there I get out go to Los Angeles my brother you know he's he's not blood brother but that's my brother's name is D Ray Davis comedian actor he gave me a place to stay and he goes so what are you gonna do while you're here I was like I'm gonna be a singer he's like you'll be a singer he's like yeah he was like I give you rides anywhere you go I buy you clothes you get a free place to stay the only thing is don't come home unless you have a song I'm like I don't know any producers he was like you'll be a singer right like yeah don't come home unless you have a song that started my introduction to my space I knew nothing about my space and I'm like talking to people on the internet weird so I put on my half naked body and I was like a singer with no music I'm like looking to record songs I messaged a thousand because this was before spam I messaged a thousand people looking for recording and I'm just going I'm going I'm going I'm going I'm going because all I'm trying to do is sleep 30 days I had 28 songs because I met one guy who got me in the studio I recorded one song I put that one song on there and then I just kept going and I was just like look I got this song I got this song I'm trying to record 30 days I had 28 songs hmm two days I didn't have a place to sleep 30 days I had 28 songs he's the host of the improv inside of LA typically he he puts comedians on stage this time he's like oh my little brother he's a singer I'm like Ludacris was there like mad people was like there yeah mad celebrities they come every Monday put me on stage I sang Ludacris walks on me walks over to me and he was like you got a demo 28 songs I got yeah two months later I had a $500,000 record deal by DTP Def Jam see how that works the songs that I wrote while I was in prison mm-hmm were the songs that were on the demo mm-hmm songs I got signed with so here I am I'm like yo this is crazy mm-hmm I got me a little sign I didn't get all the money because I had to release the album but I never released the album but I released songs I was in studio writing with two chains and Chingie and and and Luda and all them I'm like yo this is wild so I'm in the studio experiencing all this stuff we put out a song called celebrity chick where I wasn't originally supposed to I was just writing the song for somebody else to sing it wasn't even my style of music but got us on trl and mtv and bet and things like that so we were performing this song and it just wasn't my style then I felt myself doing a bunch of music that wasn't my style and I gave my power away to everyone else who wanted me to show up how they thought I should show up no amount of money could keep me in any environment if I can't be authentically myself mm-hmm so I ended up leaving the label and people called me they're like yo what people go crazy for an opportunity like this I said but at the expense of me not being myself mm-hmm I'm not putting out this image I'm not I don't want to be on you know yes I do have a past where I rolled around with gang bangers and where I rolled around with hardcore people but I'm that's not that's not me like I love people I wear fun colors I'm a very expressive person and things like that like my style of music doesn't have no business being on stage with you know the style of music that I was on stage this makes no sense it's not even my core audience so I was losing myself so I left got called crazy and when I left I also left $400,000 on the table because I never put out the album well I spent all the money that I had bought me a Jeep Wrangler cash spent spent spent because I still didn't know anything about money I'm like man this seems familiar mm-hmm I was like well at least I got myself and then the hype died down mm-hmm the underground buzz died down and at that time I was going by my middle name Steph Jones step on is my middle name but that was my stage name and I was like man I got to do something different and I was like but all I have is my car so I stayed in my car no money was coming in even the songs that I wrote for other people sometimes they don't get placed four or five years later right I'm getting checks right now right last year I got like $23,000 out of nowhere for a song that I wrote 12 years ago I'm like god damn I'm like I could have used this back then yeah but when the no money was coming in my girlfriend had broken up with me um because I couldn't get my life together the hype died down daughter pretty much disowned me because I couldn't get my life together mom was dying in the hospital family was overweight I started going in debt I didn't pay taxes for 10 years but they can't get you past seven so I owed $250,000 to the government super negative try to kill myself twice and it just kept going so just as fast the velocity that level of energy that went that I had when I was a little kid just as fast as it went up was just as fast as it went down with like three elephants chained to my soul eight tons I mean rocket ship fast so the weight I started putting on this weight started getting depressed didn't have a place to stay too shameful to even go back home because I told people if I ever come back home that means I quit at life so I was too shameful to go back home but my mom without money was still giving me money and I'm 30 something years old can't take care of my daughter can't take care of myself I'm like what's the point in living and I'm extremely talented trying to figure out why all of these people that are less talented are achieving this big quality of life that I know I'm supposed to have and so I keep trying keep trying and I don't have a place to stay so I go from my car to sleep in different girls houses but at eventually I make sex is good but like I leave man there's a point where I'm like I don't even want to have sex no more because I don't love myself I hate myself I want to die it makes no sense to be alive to have all of this talent and to have no life and then my friend put a bullet into his head who had all the cars all the models all the money he had everything so I thought but himself and I'm like so maybe my take on success should be reframed because what I thought was success in the pinnacle my friend just put a bullet into his head and I've been surrounded by success since like massively successful people since 1999 so I've seen it I've seen it in many different industries what it's like when you get a lot of money what it's like when you lose a lot of money what it's like when you get a lot of money and you grow it what it's like when you get a lot of money and sustain it and I had all these different characters in my past and I'm like man I gotta do something different so going into this living in my car still going down I don't know how to come back I don't know this is like right now I don't know how to go down yeah because we it's it's wide open up and out and bigger and better I didn't know how to come back it was too the world was too heavy so I'm living in my car one one day turned into a week turned into three weeks turned into a month turned into two and a half years close to two and a half years living in my car 200,000 dollars 250,000 dollars in debt girlfriend broke up with me this is while I'm in my car final straw I'm in the studio with an A-list artist writing for his album won't name his name I'm like this is my big break because I know this song is gonna go I come up with the melody I come up with lyrics and I'm calling the their publisher is like how many points do I get they're like oh they changed the song the song comes out and it's the exact same song it didn't change nothing about the song and that song went number one and it got a Grammy while I'm living in my car and this person is still an A-list celebrity because I know who it is and so it's not like someone that's small but you're looking at every once again everybody else with less talent succeeding and you're not yeah that was the final straw and I say you know what music the industry all those people myself that's when it was I went dark because I was still living in my car nobody knew it because I could fake it I could fake it easy I could put on any face you want me to put on come from acting in modeling industry in LA so it came point where I couldn't fake it no more and then that's what turned into the weight that's what turned into the stress and depression and and no relationships my mom's still sending me money through western union and I know she don't have no money I'm like man and I'm 32 years old a man who can't take care of himself 14 traffic tickets they I'm going to the courthouse to pay them off because somehow like God sent me a sign somebody sent me a uh um what do you call it a uh anonymous paypal for like 1500 bucks I believe in you keep going you still have no idea who that is this day I mean the way my spirit works I know where it came from yeah however I believe in you keep going 1500 paypal I took this money and I was going to the courthouse to pay off all these tickets one block away from the courthouse a cop stops me I got my bags because I'm living out of my car I got my bags all these white trash bags in the back of my car cop stops me I already know because I I didn't have any money for a child support so I had they they suspended my license um the my registration was passed due so there was all kind of stuff just but I was going to go pay it all off at the courthouse and I was like please don't take my car I live out of my car I got this money right now I'm one block away from the courthouse it's like please don't take my car and he wrote me a ticket they took my car and the cop just and I was in a denny's parking lot though that I can't do this no more I can't I can't do it no more so my mom once again sent me a western union and I said one day I'm a bear bag one day I said promise mom I said mom I promise I'm going to pay you back and I know she don't have it that night I got my car back out of the impound there's 343 in the morning the night before I mean the um before that night so I got my car out of the impound I got it back I went to la fitness because I always had my member membership of la fitness because that's where I would like shower and stuff like that parked it right at the front came out somebody broke into my car the day I got my car at the impound somebody broke into my car stole my computer and I was like I mean I cannot win for anything and I just remember saying can it get any worse and in that moment I was like maybe I should stop saying can it get any worse so that night I put the scotch tape and the t-shirt on the right side of my car and I used to sleep in my car um in on the corner of la brea and hollywood at the mail and more in the mail and more parking parking lot and I would face because it was like a I felt more safe in that place 343 in the morning august 2011 that's when I had that was the moment that's what set up all of this okay I'm tired of fighting I don't want to fight anymore I want to be healthy I want to be happy I want to be surrounded by nothing but positive people and I just want to inspire people and I want to make a bunch of money but I want the money to represent something that I passionately believe in that I would do for free just show me a sign show me a sign one week later I'm at a gas station and a homeless guy comes up to me asking me for money and I say you have more money than me and the homeless guy said change your mindset change your life and in that moment right there that's six cents moments where your whole life flashed before your eyes I had a conscious interrupt and I thought about every the prison the modeling the acting the life growing up change your mind so if my mind is set on something then that's why the result is what it is so if I do different with the same circumstance my life will change change your mindset change your life and I just kept on you know if you play a song long enough you'll be singing the song your subconscious mind will have you singing that song for the whole month my new song was change your mindset change your life change your mindset change your life change your mindset I will walk up to some a set of escalators change your mindset change your life so I take the stairs I normally use gel soap change your mindset change your life I use bar soap normally I wake up late change your mindset change your life I would practice waking up early I would come from a family that doesn't know anything about healthy active lifestyle or living eating nutritious change your mindset change your life let me go find some people who are doing it let me surround myself around healthy active lifestyle community let me go stop chasing women at a club let me go chase a better version of myself everything was on the other side of something I would never do in areas of my life where I wasn't happy and I just kept going and I kept going well at one of these leadership seminars a guy on stage said when you find a good book keep reading it because when you stop reading it things from your past start creeping I'm like that's what happened the rise and fall from the acting the highest the modeling the music and I'm like the ego the ego creeped in I allowed the ego to creep in because I didn't choose to keep learning choose to keep growing I didn't choose to surround myself around positive people who are up to something and it's I made it all about me and in that moment I became less me more we but in order to get to we you gotta you gotta be a we kind of person mm-hmm so I picked up the book power of positive thinking again and I kept reading kept reading kept reading and then I was around a healthy active lifestyle community well they were talking about goals and dreams and retiring their parents and and all these different things and I was but by nature I just started doing everything that they were doing I dropped 35 pounds put on 19 pounds of muscle took my body fat from 16.4 percent down to 6 percent I but at age 32 I didn't even think that you could do that then so just because my energy I thought it was gone but I was around an incredible community of people you're speaking a new language what you were doing I was learning a new learning a new language you were you went from Spain and you decided to go to Germany and now you're learning German just by being around I learned French to speak fluently not Rosetta Stone at Starbucks once a week one hour a week I was actually in France amongst the French the only American there I'm a little rusty now because I don't speak it every day but I can I can I understand everything so by be it by by way of proximity being around the people being around the fire I got warm and I still have that same energy I finally knew where to put it I said before energy cannot be created nor destroyed it can only be transferred so I transferred into reading books I transferred into leadership I transferred into building people up I transferred into learning and understanding about money I'm like oh that's why I kept losing it same reason why 99 of the people who win the lottery lose it because they're not operating on the same frequency as the level of money that they got so the money is coming back to meet them at their level of self development and the value in which they see themselves so once I was aware of all these things I then went back to all these bench benchmarks in my life and started connecting the dots and seeing what were the commonalities and seeing why this happened and that's what I decided to even put into my book which was the journey the lessons what I extracted how you can place it in your life what I didn't know was that by posting this online my very first message was going to come from somebody who says by you sharing your real uh your authentic testimony I put the gun down five messages later after you because I shared my testimony about me living in my car and I just completely opened it up by you sharing your testimony I didn't drive my car off a bridge I knew what my mission was and I knew what my purpose was it was to be an example of what true freedom looks like thank you uncle Dwayne for expressing what free looks like that's my uncle Dwayne he taught me I just didn't know that that expression was going to be something that could be an example for the voiceless because I was the voiceless until I spoke till I shared my vulnerability till I shared my story and then people starting man I want to pay you to come to this school you want to come to this prison you want to come to this jail you want to come speak to these teens you want to come like you want to be on this panel you want to go and do this I'm like yo and I'm like yeah I'm I don't have no manager I don't have no PR but I'm able to pay this rent and I'm making these thousands of dollars and I'm not even looking for the money like if money is great however it seems that the more people that I am impacting the dollar amount is matching it's like the bigger the message the bigger the platform bigger the outcome so I start paying attention to patterns because I have these significant things that occurred in my life I can always pull them to the forefront when I start noticing certain things happen in my life I'm like and I can easily go like that because the thing about it is weeds don't need anything to grow but time so no matter how well you keep up your garden you leave it for there long enough you know it'd be time you can brush your teeth for 60 years every day stop brushing your teeth for five days the infections will grow take a shower every day 60 years don't take a shower so we don't can keep renewing your mind stop for five days stinky minds stinky life stinky outcome so then I started learning about business because it's transferring the energy but still the same power same velocity whenever I get into something I don't know how to kind of do it I didn't know how to be a kind of criminal I didn't know how to kind of break into those cards when I was a little kid when I go into something I go hard I go all the way in I went all the way in with my relationship with my wife like that's so I'm all the way in kind of guy do y'all get anything from this all the way in will always produce vastness of results regardless if it's negative or positive and it just keeps growing then I moved to Austin being surrounded by guys like you and other businessmen that are doing things that I'm not but I'm also doing things that they're not and we're all iron sharpens iron building people up and this is the next cut this is the next cut in investments and in business and everything however my sweet spot is sharing my story being vulnerable and telling everybody that you can create a different outcome for your life and depending on how many people you impact there will always be a blessing on the other side for sure yeah you're the you're the perfect example of your message your message yeah you just share your and people go oh me too and that's what you were put here to do yes and you've in so many people it's like the phrase you know Jim Carrey says your need to fit in in this role to make you invisible you know so many people just want to fit in and just want to fit in kind of like you were saying when you went to the modeling you wanted to fit in but they weren't looking for so many fittings they already had that role played yeah and you got the modeling the one thing that I that I we and it's there's two things actually number one you're the perfect example of I mean Tony Robin says you underestimate what you can do in a year but people underestimate overestimate they could do in a year but underestimate they can do it a decade if you think about about a decade ago you're sleeping inside of a Jeep Wrangler getting taken away and now you have a multi-million dollar house that you live in it's a decade and so people don't don't think about just putting in the time and putting in the time just knowing that if it's in the right direction eventually they get to wherever they want to go it's just a direction you all you do is course correct that's all you did right that's the first thing the second thing is being around you and the the thing that I found that's the most obvious is more than most people that I've ever been around you're so good at bringing in out your inner child in in no sort of way being ashamed of it right like people are ashamed of like the things that we love about being a kid and you talk about even being in prison you you discovered the things that you used to love when you were a kid and that got you out of prison it also is still continuing to get you paychecks from the songs that you wrote when you were in prison right so it's like you discovered this little inner kid talk to me about like how that was for you that discovery and then also to just step into it and not be afraid of other people's judgment and just go this is me this is my soul this is who I truly am and I'm just going to put it out there for everybody to see so because you are a 41 about to be 42 year old little kid yeah you are 100% yeah 100% people see all this stuff that I've been able to create and they're just like man how do you just like do it and you always have this endless amount of energy I was like what what you see is this 41 year old but what's happening when I was a little kid I said I wanted to be a superhero I wanted to have abs like an action figure I want to be stronger than the average man I want to save people's lives I'm doing what I wanted to do when I was five the modality doesn't matter right give me any platform if it has to do with what I always wanted to do you ever notice a kid they don't run out of energy so when you're operating from the essence of your heart there's like secret jewels there so how I discovered this it's very interesting actually I'm gonna just take everybody through this it's like yeah I'm gonna get you to answer your own question imagine a little kid your parent a little kid is coming up to you going mom mom mom dad dad dad mom dad dad dad and you ignore that kid for 20 years what do you think the relationship is gonna be good because there's no emotional closure if the water if the flower doesn't get proper water in sunlight that's the nutrients it needs for growth so when the child is not acknowledged it starts to it starts to it turns to quiet then mean then anger then rage then then there is it's like invisible if you understand that now imagine anytime you get a hint for an idea somebody should create that or a man I I wanted to do this thing right here and or something that used to bring you so much joy when you're a little kid like playing in the rain swimming drumming dancing don't think about business in in this sense right here but something that you just absolutely loved okay when was the last time you did it now someone a lady that I spoke to she was like oh I haven't danced and I just feel like something is missing I have the job I have the money but something is missing I was like well what did you love when you were like around five or six years old and her whole body she was like I used to love to dance and I don't know and it just brought me so much joy and I was like when was the last time you danced she was like about 20 years ago I said so imagine dance was a spiritual child like it was it's an expression of you that is connected to your inner child and every day that goes by is going mom mom mom mom dad dad dad imagine if you ignored that child for 20 years what do you think the relationship would be like I feel like something is missing and she goes I said ding ding ding ding ding you just found yourself because we're not just this physical body and this meat suit skin there's actually a spirit I feel there's a soul inside of here there's got to be some reason why I'm going like this and we can conjure up our stories and things that's coming from somewhere well when it feels dead when it feels lost and I've been there before so I can speak on my personal experience it feels dead it's lost what's missing is your is the connection to your spirit so when you actually honor those things the little kid is like ah let me show you more you tell little Johnny Johnny you're so fast then he starts running faster so I can get people to understand that what they're looking for they already have the ideas the creativity comes from the kids that's why they're so creative from ages one through seven then gets diminished as they get older but if you tap into it I feel like it's connected to your spiritual umbilical cord that's a straight route from heaven mm-hmm so that in itself right there if people got that right there they would experience a drastic shift in any relationship in relationship to money in relationship to creativity their job and anything and you know you got a lot of people that are successful but there are a lot of people who are successful and not happy mm-hmm that overcompensate to distract from an area that they've ignored since they were a little kid so what did I do when I was in prison I started running my mom says I started walking when I was 11 and a half months and it takes it takes seven and a half months and it takes babies like 11 something to to do something she was like you she was like you're a full blown running before most babies are walking mm-hmm so running's always been inside of me always so when I started running in prison I was increasing my joy so funny joy to the world the Lord had so it's like I bring joy to the world and it seems like my world is an expression of the joy mm-hmm so teaching people how to honor their inner child only gets them to remember themselves and when you remember yourself to the core you don't have to try to be happy you don't have to look for happiness you don't have to look for love because it's it's an expression of who you are and then you'll attract people to the way that you see yourself mm-hmm so what you're saying is what everyone's searching for the money the cars the happiness the acceptance is what they think they want what they truly want is just to find themselves a sense of fulfillment which they are the captain of stuff on the top underneath brush all the same shit mm-hmm it's all the same shit I just really need a man to make me happy I really need this job to make me happy I really need this money to make me happy then you get this shit you realize that's not what you wanted mm-hmm happens over and over and over and over and over so that's why I had to redefine what I felt like wealth and success was my version of wealth and success is to live a life of grace joy and ease and when I go to sleep at night no voices it's peaceful mm-hmm and it's calm and when I look in the mirror and the truth shows up and nobody else is around I love what I see that my version of success stick into that one that that one won't put a bullet into his brain I don't know if there's a better way to end up so than that so everybody just so you know Garen we were talking about this beautiful book that he has it's called change your mindset change your life and also has a new podcast yeah so tell us you help me with it um so my podcast is called welcome home with garen jones and it's everywhere where podcasts are and we have a few episodes up right now by the time y'all hear this there's gonna be a lot more but i'm basically just talking about insights and awarenesses that I've either learned applied experience um just for people to have you know things that are real from real people and um you know I call it welcome home because like when you really find yourself you realize that home is not the home until you find home in yourself so reminding people of who they are by giving them tools and ways to have these insights to discover their own version of freedom and love inside of themselves these are things that I talk about and my book is in um English and Spanish and paperback and we're currently working on the audiobook now um on amazon and um you know I didn't write this huge esoteric book this is my personal experience talk about god talk about spirit talk about you know I got in trouble for there's uh you know I extract a lot of lessons and I didn't write it to the level of my knowledge I wrote it for people who typically don't read books at all so it's a very simple read very simple you can finish it in a day very simple there's some pictures in there big words and I made the chapter short however the spirit at which it was written was designed specifically for you to remember yourself love it yeah got one more question for you that I ask so I don't know if you've ever heard the phrase they say you die twice yeah first one is the first time the first time is when you stop breathing the second time is the last time someone says your name yeah in between those two deaths what do you hope people say about you after you're gone before the last time they speak about you again say that one more time can you say that one more time in a different way so they say you die twice okay first time is when you stop breathing second time is the last time someone says your name what do you hope people say about you in between that last time they speak your name and the time that you die the thing about it is people aren't going I live my life in such a way that people will never stop saying my name people still talk about Benjamin Franklin he been gone my dad died when I was 12 but he's still alive because I carry on his message of being able to love no matter what and that's something he gave to me when I was five so my dad's still alive because soul a soul lives inside of messages like our ancestors are still alive just like those trees if one of those trees fall the roots and somehow there'll be integration somehow so I there is like the physical death but I don't believe in the kind of death where they're gonna say that would be the last time they say my name so I'm living my life and making and working towards making the kind of impact well they'll mention my name with the greats because of the impact that I chose to leave while I was physically on this earth but my soul will forever live garen jones appreciate you man yes sir good stuff thank you for being here that was for everyone who's listening to the podcast there's no clue what the is going on right now yeah so basically he has these microphones that stretch out they look like alien arms one of them's in my face one of them in his face we're sitting three feet apart and I reached over with my right hand he's reached over with his right hand and we're stretching like this so if you're visual learners you're just gonna have to miss it you're gonna have to go to youtube and look it up yeah you have to do garen appreciate you man appreciate you too thank you so much for the work that you're doing in the world and giving stories and stories like mine wings to fly yeah appreciate it yes sir hey thanks so much for watching this video if you want to learn even more about master your mind click right here and watch this video as well that was the experience that changed the trajectory of my life forever I stayed up all night writing and just kind of reevaluating everything that I thought about the world yeah